The objective of my research during the period of the NIH grant will be to write a book on John Jacob Abel (1857-1938) and the development of pharmacology in the United States. The science of experimental pharmacology was born in the early 19th century, and established itself as an independent discipline in Germany in the latter half of that century. Abel, a student of Oswald Schmiedeberg, the most prominent pharmacologist of his generation, brought the new science from Germany to America. After spending two years on the faculty at the University of Michigan, Abel moved to the Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1893. His laboratory became a center for pharmacological research and for the training of pharmacologists to fill the posts that were beginning to open up in academia, industry and government. Abel also played a key role in the establishment of a national society and a journal for pharmacology. A major portion of my study of the early development of pharmacology in the United States would therefore center around Abel. I propose to spend the first year of the grant period at Johns Hopkins University, where I will have ready access to the voluminous collection of Abel manuscript materials located there. In examining the emergence of pharmacology as an independent discipline in this country, I will focus on such question as the process of intellectual transfer of the discipline from Germany to the United States, the development by American pharmacologists of a "group identity" (e.g., as reflected in the formation of their own society and journal), the establishment of pharmacologists in medical schools and in industrial and government research laboratories, the growing involvement of pharmacologists in matters of therapeutics and public health, and the backgrounds of the individuals who entered the field.